The Waffler chooses Hope over Steffy -- for now, anyway

Liam refused to let Hope leave him like an unwanted dog -- and claimed that no one wants a Steam reunion, anyway. Tell that to Steffy, who's dreaming about it between baby feedings. While Bill pulls his family and business together, Forrester leaks employees like the Titanic. How can Forrester compete with a rival fashion house while running at half-mast with designers?

You ever wonder why Katie can't keep a good man? The answer isn't that she doesn't get married for a living, like she claims Brooke does. I never would have thought Katie could go wrong by marrying an anchor character on the show. I also never thought B&B would develop the unseemly habit of bringing on This week on The Bold and the Beautiful, Bill stepped up to heal his family and advance his business. He affirmed that he was there for Will and Katie and teased the possibility of a Batie reunion. Bill agreed to make amends with Sally and reopen Spectra if it meant drawing Wyatt back into the company fold. The great Spencerini is working magic everywhere and even managed to get Liam to open up a little about his triangle troubles.

As it all seems to be coming together for Bill at work and at home, Hope and Steffy's home life might just cause the fall of the house of Forrester. HFTF lost its lead designer, and Hope is folding a "dead" baby's clothes instead of trying to find a new person to design clothes for the living. Steffy wades knee-deep in spilled baby formula, pretending she isn't peeing in her pants about Liam's possible return, and she has no clue that she just lost her Intimates designer to Spencer Fashions.

Yes, Spencer Fashions. We should have known Bill would throw a Spency wrench into Wyatt's dragon-slaying knight routine for Sally. Wyatt wanted to get Spectra back for the anti-damsel, but Bill, who claims he doesn't want to be a dressmaker, wants his name on all the dresses. Go figure. Spectra Fashion is dead; long live Spencer Fashions, designed by Sally Spectra -- until the wizard of Spencer drops another building on her, that is.

Eric told Sally to bring on the friendly competition, but now that Spencer Fashions, not Spectra, will go head to head with Forrester, I'm wondering how friendly a double-edged sword can be. No, Bill isn't wearing his sword, but I bet it's branded on his heart. The needles are going to hit the fan once Ridge learns that Eric just let their designer go to the unscrupulous Bill without even holding her to a noncompete clause.

Let's get two scoops deep into whether Forrester can compete with Spencer Fashions when it's two designers down, and one of those designers, who knows Forrester's plans, just went to the competition. We'll scoop about the storm brewing over the Lope/Steam Triangle and hope that Flo's love for Los Angeles and guilt about Hope can steer us out of the God-forsaken baby storyline this week on The Bold and The Beautiful.

Last week, it was all about control. Thanks to Wyatt, Sally just got the means to control her own career, vision, and destiny. Thanks to Bill, Sally just lost the means to control her own career, vision, and destiny. Wyatt got Bill to agree to revive the defunct Spectra Fashions in exchange for Wyatt's employment at Spencer Publications. At the last minute, the Great Spencerini pulled a great switcharooni and added the stipulation that the fashion house had to be called Spencer Fashions, not Spectra Fashions.

Sally and Wyatt, who already tendered their resignations at Forrester after agreeing not to tender their resignations at Forrester until the Spectra deal was done, weren't in positions to deny Bill the caveat. Yeah, that's why you don't quit your day jobs, people.

It's no surprise that Bill stipulated the name change. It was the first topic out of his mouth when he agreed to the deal. Bill wants to control the business. He wants the Spencer brand on it, even if it might cause people to label him a dressmaker. Why? Because he doesn't believe in Wyatt and Sally's relationship. Bill probably thinks he needs to secure ownership of the fashion house so that he can easily toss Sally out once Wyatt and she break up.

Quinn's hornet's wings are up about the news of the fashion house and the relationship between Wyatt and Sally, too. Quinn is worried that Bill will hurt Wyatt again. She had expected Sally and Wyatt to announce their engagement, and she probably isn't too thrilled about having to compete against her son and his lover instead of working with them.

Should we even get into why Wyatt and Sally aren't engaged? They act as if their love shines brighter than the Hope Diamond, so why hasn't Wyatt put a ring on it? The fact that they aren't engaged makes me think Bill might be right to get the business in the Spencer name.

At baby central, Hope tries to control Liam and Steffy's future -- for the sake of the babies. Like Whitney Houston, I believe the children are the future; however, I'll be damned if I hand my man over to his ex-wife to let her kids bounce around with him on a bed on a Saturday morning and the ex bounce around in it with him on a Saturday night. I love Jesus, but I'm a little selfish.

In Hope's face, Steffy was all like, "Design your own life, not mine," but in private, she was gazing at the portrait and flashing back on all her weddings and beach fun with Liam. Steffy needs to flash back to opening that dressing room door and finding Liam tearing off Hope's robe. Actually, Steffy didn't have to because, right in front of her face, Liam told Hope, "I don't need to be with Steffy. Nobody wants that."

Talk about a splash of cold water on someone's face! Those words should have knocked Steffy out of her reunion fantasy. If they didn't, Liam had more to say. Steffy had avoided the Lope wedding; however, she couldn't avoid it when Liam reminded Hope of the vows they'd exchanged that day, and he reaffirmed his unyielding commitment to Hope.

There Hope was, reminding him of his vows to Steffy, but Liam was hand-wrestling Hope to make her keep her ring on her finger. Hope got the ring off and tried to give it back to Liam, but he was adamant that they weren't going there again. He put the ring back on her finger -- in front of Steffy's face. Steffy, girl, you look so damn foolish with that portrait on your wall. Brooke tried to tell you while you were rolling your eyes and folding booties. She tried to tell you.

One would think that would be the end of it, but no. Hope came back out swinging in round three on Friday. Liam saw the crumpled sonogram on the table and rolled his eyes like, "Oh, here we go again." Hope went right back to telling him that his place was with Steffy and the girls. She wanted to give the girls a daddy because it had affected her not to have her father while growing up.

Okay, Hope needs to stop tripping. She had three men step up to be her daddy. Ridge was there. Nick was there. Deacon tried to be there in her adulthood. Second, didn't Ridge and Brooke say Ridge is the father to Hope that Hope wants Liam to be to those girls? Third, why does Hope think she suffered by not having De-conman in her life? Doesn't she know he's in jail for attempted murder? Hope should realize by now that Brooke did her a favor by spraying Raid on Deacon every time he crawled back to town.

So, Hope can just put that daddy-abandonment crap back in the trash she pulled it out of. B&B has a terrible habit of making it seem like men can't be good fathers unless they are in a loveless relationship under the same roof as the mothers. At the same time, B&B tries to advocate the "I'm Every Woman" theme by promoting single mothers, even making Steffy into a single supermom.

I'm confused, and so are all the SORASed children on this show. The writers need to pick a family principle and stick to it. Hope cannot say on the one hand that Liam will be the father figure for baby Phoebe that Hope never had when, in reality, Hope had a Liam growing up. I repeat, Ridge was her Liam! By Hope's logic, Liam should marry Maya, too, for Lizzy's sake.

Liam is right. He can be a good husband and a good father without having to wake up in Steffy's bed every morning. Steffy was right when she told Hope that Hope married Liam for love, not for the baby. Steffy needs to remember that statement and not take Liam in just because Hope outgrew her husband.

Meanwhile, guess who's still in town, working at Bikini? Apparently, working at a dive bar on the beach beats running craps tables in Vegas. Flo must have spent her 50K on takeout and must need employment pretty badly, but bartending and living in that little apartment isn't exactly the most ambitious plan for starting over. It's more like stalling out, which is what this plot is doing.

Remember the Zoe who was crying and talking about how she couldn't let her father do this to the Forresters who trusted her and gave her a chance? She's gone. In her place is a mini-Reese. Zoe is not only complicit in her father's scheme, but she's also overseeing the cleanup and urging Flo to keep quiet and get out of town.

Flo doesn't see what the risk is in a city so big. She needs to look at a map because Wyatt lives within walking distance of the bar. Thanks to Katie's drunken stroll on the beach that one Fourth of July, we know that the cliff house is just a walk up the beach from Wyatt's abode. Proximity is everything, and I'm puzzled that Flo, who drove to the beach while Steffy and Kelly bonded with the baby before the adoption, doesn't know how near to Steffy the bar is.

Flo is about to find out just how small L.A. can be. Katie invited Hope to eat at the bar. I suspect that next week, Flo will figure out who Hope is and maybe even get an opportunity to overhear just how insane her baby's death has made her.

Have you ever heard of people who drive dogs that they no longer want out to the country, let them out, and then drive off? They sometimes abandon the dog in a bag to prevent it from knowing the direction in which the driver went. Unbelievably cruel. When you get a dog, you make a commitment to it until death do you part. Anything less is -- well, it's Hope!

Yes, I compare babies to puppies, and husbands to dogs. It's just what single dog moms do. Hope lost her baby and didn't give a damn what happened to Sally's puppy. Now, Hope is willing to give her stray husband away because she just can't give him the family she thought she could when she first brought him home.

Hope didn't try to leave Liam in a field somewhere. First, she opened the door, hoping he'd wander out on his own. When he didn't, she tried to talk Steffy into taking him in. Steffy was all like, "But, Hope, you love that dog -- I mean, Liam." Liam was all cute, sweet, and devoted when he showed up, and Hope wound up taking him right back home.

Is Liam really devoted to Hope, or was his boombox-over-the-head moment just a plot device to hold the triangle over until JMW's maternity leave ends? When we're talking about the waffler, the answer is probably both. Liam would be a total jerk for leaving Hope in this state, and it wouldn't make any sense for him to leave only to go back again after the Beth reveal.

If only we can get a Beth reveal! I originally thought that the dogged Zoe wouldn't allow Hope to suffer so severely every single second of her life, but evidently, Zoe would rather protect her father over being honest. Zoe makes it better for herself by seeing Beth as a lost puppy who happened to find a good home.

Flo, on the other hand, can't live with the guilt of what "Reese" has done. Don't you love how Flo puts all the blame on Reese? She pretends to be so innocent, as if she wasn't sitting right there, reading the fake papers and gauging how much trouble she could get into before she even wrote her name on them.

I can't RSVP for Flo's pity party or believe her empathy for Hope; however, as flawed as she is, Flo is probably our only chance at getting to the truth before Hope attempts another husband dump on Steffy, who is so exhausted and sex-starved that she just might jump at the meat Hope dangles above her head.

It would be nice to see this whole storyline end, so Hope and Steffy can get back to running their lines and Forrester. The company is a ghost ship for the taking. It has just lost two designers and its marketing guru, but all Hope and Steffy seem to be fixated on is whose turn it is to have Liam. I suggest they stop worrying about folding baby clothes and start worrying about who's gonna be designing clothes before Spencer Fashions runs them out of business.

The Forrester halls are a bit vacant, aren't they? The interns aren't buzzing around. Donna has time to go home in the middle of the day. Eric and Quinn wander in and out like tourists instead of executives. Thorne up and left. Wyatt and Sally dipped without two-weeks notices. Steffy has been on retroactive maternity leave since the fashion show, and Hope has been on mourn-ternity leave for sixty days. I don't even know where Ridge is. Maya? Carter? Anyone?

Eric claimed that Thorne's departure put Forrester in a bind, but they don't seem to be in a hurry to fill the position. Eric told Sally that he'd put in a good word for her, but what he should have done was offer her a raise and promotion to stay on in Thorne's stead. Waiting for Hope to come to the office and approve the job is like waiting for grass to grow. Eric and Ridge tossed money into the HFTF gas tank, but Hope can't even come in to find a new design engine.

Bill couldn't have planned a fashion takedown of Forrester any better if he was actually trying. Step one -- run off Thorne. Check. Step two -- get Wyatt back and put Sally in charge of the new fashion house. Check. Step three -- seduce Katie back into the Spencer fold. Step four -- feed Liam whatever tofu, save-the-world BS it takes to get him back. Voila! Revenge on the dressmakers for tossing Bill over the balcony brought on by nothing but Bill's good karma.

Will Forrester compete with the new Spencer Fashions, or is this picking off of Forrester employees merely a plot device to get the characters over to Spencer for stories that involve Bill? Quinn assured her husband that she wasn't going anywhere. It's hard to imagine that Liam will leave Forrester when he's so intricately tied to Hope and Steffy. Thomas is on the way back, probably to address this design emergency. Despite Forrester's skeleton crew, can Sally out-design Eric, Ridge, and Thomas?

I doubt it. Not in a fair competition. We all know that "fair" isn't in Bill's vocabulary. As I mentioned before, Sally apparently didn't have a noncompete clause, and she left Forrester with a ton of knowledge about their designs, lines, style, and future plans. I'm not saying Bill will do something underhanded. I'm just saying that Bill had better hide "Sky" away for safekeeping just in case Sally does decide to take it out on the building model when he forces her to do something underhanded.

Wyatt's relationship with Sally has been going very well, but with Bill as their boss, it's bound to get tested right along with Wyatt's relationship with his mother and stepfather, who run the competing company. Additionally, the return of Thomas and other spoiler news might indicate a rocky road ahead for Sally and Wyatt's relationship.

According to next week's preview video, Betrayal, Lies, and Threats, Zoe continues to pressure Flo to get out of town before they and Reese wind up in serious trouble. Flo asserts that Reese deserves to go to jail for using her. At a dinner party at Wyatt's, a tearful Flo has something to tell Hope and Liam about Steffy's baby. Flo sobs, asking them not to hate her.

How does Flo wind up at a dinner party in Malibu with the very people she wants to avoid? It ain't Disneyland, but it's a small world, after all. Flo meets Hope at the bar, and Hope feels a kinship with the woman who gave baby Phoebe up for adoption.

Liam thinks it's very odd that Hope meets the birth mother -- probably because Steffy told him that Flo wanted to get as far away from the baby as possible. Hopefully, Liam will also find it odd that Zoe, Dr. Reese Buckingham's daughter, introduces Hope to Flo. It's likely not going to register to the PTSD-suffering Hope, but for Liam, who claims he's thinking straight enough for both of them, it should raise a big red flag.

As it turns out, Flo is a woman from Wyatt's past. Cue the drams between Sally and Wyatt -- maybe. So much praise from everyone about Wyatt and Sally's relationship foreshadows doom, but I'll reserve judgment until the writers reveal more about Wyatt's past with Flo. The way the writers have been lately, it could just be a dead-end plot device to get Flo near Hope.

I vaguely remember Wyatt once talking to Hope in that silver bullet trailer about a woman from his past. Am I right about that? Could that woman be Flo?

As always, let us know what you think in the comments section, and until we scoop again, stay bold and beautiful, baby!

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